Year 11 2023-24

[Maxus]

Anyone else got kids starting year 11 in September?

No problem, organisation is my middle name!

@wonderstuff which exam board?

I think AQA. She’s now seen the mark and thinks she was only a couple marks off a 5. I think she needs the 5 to do psychology.. She got 8 in maths and Spanish so no worries there, she did 665 in triple science and there giving her the option to do double instead.

If you want any specific pointers, let me know

Re triple or double
Does she know which topics would be dropped.
Is it content learning that is the issue or understanding/applying.
How much has she revised/learned already.

What I am getting at is would 665 turn into say 77, or would it turn into 65. How much revision time would be saved, and where would she use it.

The teacher hopes 665 would become 77 for science. I think particularly in physics the extra content for triple hasn’t really been taught, they’ve been given materials to learn (she has one teacher for all three, I suspect school doesn’t have a physics specialist). When she started triple we hoped it would spread the risk a little, but I suspect when they analysed the papers the additional content let her down? I’d hope the teacher had goo reason to suggest it anyway!

Sounds very sensible in that case to my eyes!

This was normal for my DCs, in school full time but until mid June! They had a 30 min booster revision session before any morning exam then the exam and then back into timetabled lessons. Later if they had finished all the papers for that subject they would be filed off into additional lessons for the ones they still had to sit. We were given a very detailed sheet of where they were to be during school hours and I still have their GCSE exam timetables with all the revision sessions added on a spreadsheet.

They also had after school revision sessions, no more than 3 a week as sometimes that is a very long day if they had a morning exam too. It is an incredible state school that wanted the best for their students. Paid off for both of mine with exceptional grades. There is no study leave as a whole anymore, they find that if students are home then a lot are not studying effectively. Instead they are in school in lessons covering revision. School is compulsory until children reach school leaving age on the last Friday of June in the school year they turn 16 which is after exams finish.

My dts have done well in mocks, DD got all 9s and a 8 in Eng Lit and 7 in Spanish. DS got 9s in History, Chem and Eng Lang and a mixture of 6s and 7s and a 4 in Spanish. They have devised a revision timetable and will going into school over Easter for revision sessions. Both very focused!

Well done @Curlyshabtree twins! We have mocks results tomorrow at 8:30. DS is reasonably confident. I'm terrified 😨

Not terrible results this morning
6 in Geography 5 in History English x 2 Science x 2 4 in maths and business (he's disappointed with them) 3 in Spanish
Work in progress 🤞🙏

Well done to your children @gingercat02 and @Curlyshabtree

DS got a 9 in psychology mock. Insane given that he got a 5 in the November mock. DS says it's entirely because he has learnt the answer structures required. He doesn't actually know anything more than he knew in November!

@Waspie that’s half the battle isn’t it, knowing how to present the knowledge to pass the exam! Well done to your DS on that amazing result!

@MrsHamlet do you have any suggestions for shifting AQA English Lang paper 2 up a bit? My son got an 8 in paper 1 and a high 5 in paper 2 and really struggles with the comparing question and the long one, he can never think of enough "opinion" and ends up waffling off the point (his words not mine haha)

@Techno56 do you mean Q2 (the comparison summary) or Q4 (the comparison of perspectives)?

Waffling is v bad. No more than 2 sides of crafted writing please :)

Oh dear, I don't know which one, just that he felt one of the comparing ones hadn't gone that well, and definitely the last one (which was a speech about reducing the cost of public transport).

I never get to see his papers in English, maybe I should just leave his teacher to it...😬

If you can get them and scan them, I'll happily cast my beady eye over.

Q5 often gets looooong and then they talk themselves out of marks because we just want it to stop because it's not crafted or structured enough.

Marks are for content and organisation.

Tearing my hair out today. Dd school has just said that they don’t believe she should have extra time. The JCQ deadline was last week, they haven’t assessed her, she’s on track for a 4/5 in English language despite getting 120 in her KS2 reading test, she’s 6-9 elsewhere. Before having extra time in the latest mocks she’d never finished an English mock.
I wrote to the SENCO early in year 10, repeatedly chased, I’m an assessor myself and I clearly stated the difficulties I thought she was having and what assessment I thought would be appropriate. They’re coming back saying no evidence of need. They’ve not done any speed of working tests. I honestly don’t know what to do. I’m so cross. I fear it’s now too late. So frustrating!

Thank you - I will try, although I expect his teacher will be having none of it until they go back after Easter now (break up tomorrow and even he hasn't seen it yet)

@wonderstuff write to the SENCO again and copy in the head. Ask for a prompt response and then escalate to the governors. That's a dreadful response.

We test everyone for writing speed in y7 and again at the start of y10 .

Dd got a 4 in eng lit which considering she only got 1h 30 min and no laptop is quite good. The rest are 7s and above except in maths which is a 6

Well done to your DD dinomirror

Thanks@Curlyshabtree

DS arrived home from school today saying that he won't be doing a formal revision timetable over the holidays but will be targeting particular areas/subjects where he is, or believes he is, weak. I don't know what to say to change his mind. He can be very stubborn when he wants to be. Hopefully he will start some wider revision once he's worked on these areas he has identified.

I hope your students all have productive Easter holidays

How are all the Art students doing? I cannot wait for this to be done with so he can spend his time on revision!

DS has a revision course this week so at least I know some revision will happen this holiday.

Same to you @JustHereWithMyPopcorn!

We're away for a long weekend, then back to it from Tuesday.

Absolutely agree about Art. It's been DD's biggest regret. Her teacher has told her she's on the cusp of 6/7, so DD is determined to do whatever she can to get a 7. I admire her for that, but I'm desperately trying to get her to focus on her other subjects with the same dedication.

It's no wonder kids get burnt out!

Plodding on with the course work. Art is not for the faint hearted! DD loves art so she's happy enough to do it thankfully, she's revising other subjects in the morning and doing some art in the afternoon. She's itching to get back to non course work art though.